


"you can go first."

by clickingkeyboards



Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [46]
Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Competition, Competitive Friends, Crack Treated Seriously, Embarrassment, F/F, Flirting, Fluff and Humor, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Second-Hand Embarrassment, idiocy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:03:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21890902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: Alexander and Hazel entered a competition through school, the prize being a hundred pounds. In order to decide how to divvy up the money, they decide on a competition: who can embarrass their partner more?Modern AUWritten for the forty-sixth prompt in the '100 ways to say "I love you"' prompt list by p0ck3tf0x on Tumblr.
Relationships: Alexander Arcady/George Mukherjee, Daisy Wells & Hazel Wong, Daisy Wells/Hazel Wong
Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [46]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533164
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	"you can go first."

**HAZEL**

“I have an idea.”

Alexander, one of my closest friends, is sprawled over a beanbag in my bedroom with his maths book open on the floor in front of him. When I speak, he looks up at me with his wide hazel eyes and an openly curious look on his features. As usual, there is a pinkish tint to his sunburnt cheeks from his forgetfulness during sporting tournaments. “Yeah, Hazel?”

As I am not one to sugarcoat around Alexander, who shares Daisy’s blunt and firm approach to life, I look over at him from where I am relaxed on my bed and twirl the pencil that I’m holding, before stopping the spinning to point it at him. “You know how George gets flustered and embarrassed whenever you do anything ever?”

Huffing a laugh and ducking his head into his hands (which sends blue from his pen streaking across his face), he says, “Yeah, what about it?”

“We need to have a competition,” I tell him, putting down my pencil and leaning my cheek against one of my fluffy throw pillows. When he raises an eyebrow, I elaborate. “Who can embarrass their partner more?”

Clapping his hands several times, he laughs out, “Yes, yes, yes!”

“You can go first,” I tell him with a fleeting grin. “We’ll draw up a ranking scale of embarrassment for each of them and see who can embarrass their partner more based on the scale over a period of time.  _ And _ I know what the reward can be.”

“I’m intrigued.” His smile is wicked.

Last month, Alexander and I entered a competition through school on redesigning the school system with the prize of a hundred pounds. Since then, we have been jokingly arguing how exactly we will divvy up the money, from dividing it by the number of words we each wrote, the number of hours we each put in, who was more enthusiastic and who just wanted the project to die.

“Whoever wins gets the money from the competition. If we draw, we split it fifty-fifty.”

The two of us grin at each other. “You’re on, Hazel Wong.”

* * *

**LAVINIA**

This is possibly the funniest thing I have ever seen in my entire life.

Daisy Wells is a perfectly functional human when she is embarrassed but she blushes head to toe in an utterly obvious pink: blotches up her neck, her cheeks saturated as bright as they could possibly be, even her legs and ankles flushed as pink as anything.

George Mukherjee loses the ability to speak when he is embarrassed. Despite the fact that his appearance is still slicked-back hair and perfectly pressed shirts and blazers, his speech fails in a stuttering stumble of incoherent fumbles that astonishes everybody: it is so far from his usual clipped schoolboy diction backed by a London drawl tugging on his words.

“Lavinia, what are you looking at?” Beanie asks me, tapping me on the shoulder with a delicate hand.

“Look at George.” With one hand, I point from where we stand in the queue towards the four seats on the lunch table that our resident detectives occupy.

Frowning, Beanie says, “He  _ looks  _ perfectly alright to me.”

“ _ Listen _ to him, Beans,” Kitty tells her with a long sigh.

Our table sinks into silence as we all eavesdrop on the four detectives.

“I still don’t believe that you managed to weasel the information out of Avery,” Daisy says, squinting across the table at Alexander and George. “Lord knows that none of you can  _ flirt _ information out of someone.”

“You would flirt with a brick wall to get it out of the way of a case if it was disrupting evidence, Daisy,” George says in a rather matter-of-fact tone.

Alexander lifts his hand from where it rests on the table and brings it up to the back of George’s neck, playing across the collar of his shirt with pianist’s fingers. “For your information, Wells, George did a perfectly good job charming the information from Avery. He’s the most charming person I know.”

Although George’s outward demeanour doesn’t change, when he opens his mouth to speak, it’s obvious what is going on in his brain: that is to say, awkward buffering.

“I told her — I mean, she said— it’s not so— well, I should— you see— it was—”

“And here,” Kitty says in a stage whisper of a David Attenborough voice, “we see George Mukherjee being removed from his natural habitat by the flirtatious  _ Alexanderious Aracadyus _ .”

Beanie breaks into fits of giggles, while I am still trained on the table of the detectives.

George’s mouth is still not wiring to the correct parts of his brain, buffering and stuttering and swearing to the heavens.

“Four,” Hazel says.

Alexander winks at her.

Kitty frowns, cutting a slash between her brows. “Lavinia,” she says, and I’m surprised to be addressed when Beanie is right there, “you’re friends with Alexander, aren’t you?”

I nod; we both take German and sit beside each other because of our random seating plan generated. “Yeah, I am. Why?”

“You need to find out what the shit him and Hazel are doing. I want to know.”

I hold out my hand and she shakes it. “I’ll do it.”

“You’re a brick, Lavinia.”

* * *

“An embarrassment contest?” I repeat in astonishment.

“Yes! Isn’t it a great idea?” he replies in a jovial tone, turning back to me and saying, “ _ Welche Fächer studierst du? _ ” when Frau Gabor glares at us.

“What’s the prize?” I ask the grinning American. “ _ Mein Lieblingsfach ist Wissenschaft. Was ist mit Ihnen? _ ”

“ _ Mein Lieblingsfach ist Mathematik, weil mein Lehrer Spaß macht _ ,” he says, followed by him leaning in and whispering, “The winnings from the competition.”

“Who do you think will win?” I ask him, knowing exactly who I think, deep down. “ _ Magst du Mathe? _ ”

“Me, obviously.”

I am not so sure. Hazel Wong, although shy, can be very bold when an investigation calls for it. And she may just see this as an investigation.

* * *

**ALEXANDER**

I am certain that I’m going to win.

In my opinion, it’s obvious that I will win. I am much bolder and more flirtatious that Hazel, despite her rather naive and powerfully intelligent charm. I spend half of my life flustering George with nicknames and romantic gestures, while Hazel, if she ever flusters Daisy, flusters her in private.

Over the last four days, I have gained two detentions for causing disruption and distraction in lessons. Hazel thinks this is suitably hilarious, while George and his spotless record are significantly less amused. Neither he or Daisy know what we are playing at, proven by a whispered conversation between them that contained sentences such as, “What the fuck is going on?”

Hazel and I are both amused by this, giggling about it over the phone after school and during English lessons when we’re supposed to be reading  _ Pride and Prejudice _ .

We gave ourselves until the end of the week for the competition. At the end of the second lesson on Friday (a basketball lesson), I check the note on my phone and note with satisfaction the notation that is 67-39.

“I need to go and boast to Hazel about something,” I tell George, the only other person in the changing room. “I’ll see you at lunch, love.” I kiss him on the cheek as I leave, mentally adding four points to my total as I hear him spluttering while I shut the door.

I walk down the hall that has the girls’ changing rooms on it, going to hike myself up on the ledge opposite them to wait for Hazel. However, I have done little more than dump my bags on the ledge when a multi-voiced shrill shriek rang out from the changing room. I sucked in a sharp breath, mentally preparing for the cry of murder. Instead, Beanie, Kitty, and Lavinia burst out into the hall. Kitty is googly-eyed in the wake of receiving a goldmine of gossip, Beanie looks like she is about to be sick, and Lavinia looks on the cusp of laughter.

“You’ve lost,” she says, locking eyes with me and running a hand through her dark hair. “Hazel wins.”

“What?” I reply as if I don’t already know.

“Your bet. Hazel wins.”

I pull out my phone and turn my notes towards her. “This says sixty-seven to thirty-nine. It’s more like seventy-one to thirty-nine. She can’t catch up thirty-two points.”

“You can bet that she just has.”

“Do I want to know?” I ask, expelling the image from my brain that is clamouring to be acknowledged for the sole purpose of disgusting me.

Beanie, still enormous-eyed and astonished, tells me, “No, you do not.”

* * *

**BEANIE**

_ Five minutes earlier… _

Even though I know that Daisy and Hazel together, I cannot imagine them doing something as much as kissing. They are so closed about it at school, though I still cannot picture their kisses even when they are alone. It seems as if they are not meant to be together, only best friends. However, this week has changed that slightly. Hazel has been excessively romantic, and Daisy as pink and red and blushed as anything. Still, I cannot and do not want to imagine anything else. It simply seems as if they go together in a very close way, in a way so twined together that I cannot imagine them as separate people that kiss each other.

“I need to get changed!” Jose Pritchett grumbles, thumping her PE bag against the sinks and scowling.

Several of us do not like getting changed in front of the other girls, so we line up for the toilets and take turns changing. I am one of these people, even though I am small and pale with such long hair that I can almost entirely cover my torso with it. Daisy and Hazel were let in to change early just five minutes early because they helped tidy up, so we can safely assume that Daisy has changed and left for a SWAT meeting, while Hazel is taking forever in the occupied cubical.

Lavinia opens the door of the second cubicle and stalks out, speaking loudly to be heard over the clamour of the other girls as she says, “Who is  _ in _ that other one?”

We laugh and say, “Hazel! She’s taking forever.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Kitty says, pushing open the door of the free cubical and pointing to the ledge at the back, behind the toilet.

While Jose grumbles that we should be considerate and let her change, Kitty grabs my arm and shoves me in.

I don’t want to look. It feels mean and rude. However, Hazel once told us at a sleepover that she does not mind  _ us  _ seeing her changing, but she does not like the other girls seeing her change because they think that she is looking at them, peering at them without their clothes on.

“Come on, Beans, don’t be wet,” Kitty says, pushing me up onto the ledge.

“What if she’s injured?” Lavinia adds in a whisper to goad me further.

With a scowl, I grab Kitty’s PE shirt sleeve and haul her up beside me so the two of us are peering over together.

I don’t quite register what I am seeing before I shriek along with Kitty (which prompts Lavinia to shriek only a fraction of a second after), leaping down and falling over with Kitty as we scramble to get out.

* * *

“Why did you convince me that was a good idea?” I shriek at Kitty, while Alexander looks bemused and mildly out-out.

“I didn’t think that neither of them would have  _ shirts on _ , Beans!” she yells back.

Alexander chokes out a noise, then opens a note on his phone that reads ‘67-39’. In several motions, he changes it to ‘71-39’, then to ‘71-fucking infinity’.

“What’s that?” I ask, peering over to his screen.

With a grumble and a rueful smile, he sticks his phone in his blazer pocket and says, “Hazel wins one hundred pounds.”

“You  _ bet her one hundred pounds _ ?” I ask him with a frown and folded arms. What on earth has been going on?

“No, we bet that whoever made their partner more flustered this week would get all the winnings from mine and Hazel’s competition,” he tells me.

“Ohhh!” I say with comprehension, before facepalming as laughter shakes through my body: that is such a damn  _ weird _ thing to bet on. “Can’t you win back points?”

He sinks his hands into his pockets and says, “Not unless I shag my boyfriend inside the school building, which my morals are high above.”

Kitty looks over and, with a grin that only graces her face after a goldmine of gossip has been found, says, “If you want to win that hundred pounds, Arcady…”

“Absolutely not!”


End file.
